


Under the curving sky (I'm finally learning why)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Series: Under the curving sky [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Family Bonding, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hospitals, M/M, Misunderstandings, POV Eric "E-Train" Russo, because danny is donating bone marrow to charlie, everyone is happy and doing fine other than that, set at the start of season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “You must miss him a lot, huh?”“Huh?” Steve echoes.“You know,” Eric says, and internally he sees red lights flashing. He can’t very well end that with ‘must be hard that you probably can’t have sex for a while’. This is technically kind of his boss he’s talking to. “At work, you guys all miss him, right?”Eric visits his uncle and newly discovered cousin in the hospital, where he runs into Steve McGarrett and gets some shocking news about the nature of the relationship between his uncle and the guy Eric sort of works for now.





	Under the curving sky (I'm finally learning why)

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn’t have a very direct link to any specific episode, but it takes place somewhere during or just after 6x04 (Ka Papahana Holo Pono). In that episode, Danny is said to be in the hospital, recovering from donating bone marrow to Charlie (and Steve gets a call about a case just as he’s going to visit him and he looks really sad about it so Lou tells him that he’s got the case under control and Steve should go make sure Danny’s alright, because Lou knows Steve needs to see Danny more than Lou does, and Lou is a Good Friend who will cover for Steve and it's all very sweet). This fic kind of assumes that after that, Steve is over at the hospital all the damn time, because stalking Danny is his #1 hobby. 
> 
> Eric starts working at the HPD crime lab in 6x03 (Ua 'o'oloku ke anu i na mauna), so he’s still getting settled in when all this happens, but he’s in Hawaii, so I figured he would visit Danny and Charlie, too. That’s how this fic came to be. Then it grew to be ridiculously long, considering this was supposed to be a quick ficlet. Eric just wouldn't stop talking, which feels fitting for a nephew of Danny's, I suppose.
> 
> The title is a quote from _No hard feelings_ , a song by the Avett Brothers.

Eric is the first member of the Williams clan to meet his surprise cousin, after uncle D and Grace, of course – and uncle Steve, Eric mentally amends, after a second’s hesitation. The hesitation is not so much due to confusion over if Steve McGarrett should be counted here, as because Eric is even in the privacy of his own mind confused about what he should be calling Steve. Uncle Steve. Commander McGarrett. Whatever. 

It doesn’t help that uncle D has never officially introduced Steve McGarrett in anything but a professional capacity, for whatever strange reason. Eric doesn’t even pretend to understand how old people’s brains work. 

Either way, he isn’t surprised when he runs into Steve in the lobby of the hospital uncle D and Charlie are at. Steve (Uncle S? Commander Uncle?) looks like he might walk straight past Eric, looking at his phone instead of his surroundings, so Eric taps him on his shoulder as he’s passing by.

And then spares a moment to regret everything that ever led him to that suicidal decision, because it hits him that whatever he calls Steve, the guy still used to be some super scary SEAL in the Navy. 

Steve is kind enough not to rip any of his limbs off. He just looks up, surprisingly much like a normal person, and recognizes Eric. “Hey, man,” he says, offering Eric a half smile. “You here to see Danno and Charlie?”

“Sure am,” Eric says, grinning back. “You just been there?”

Steve gestures over his own shoulder in the vague direction of where Uncle D and Charlie are. “Yeah, just checking in. They seem to be doing good, both of them. Charlie was getting tired, so he might be asleep by the time you get there, but Danny at least will be happy to see you.” He smiles again, but Eric gets the feeling that this time it’s not so much at him, as at some private thought. “Well, as happy as he ever is. You know Danno.”

And Eric, well, he could never keep his big mouth shut. “You must miss him a lot, huh?”

“Huh?” Steve echoes.

“You know,” Eric says, and internally he sees red lights flashing. He can’t very well end that with ‘must be hard that you probably can’t have sex for a while’. This is technically kind of his boss he’s talking to. Also, still, badass Navy SEAL. “At work, you guys all miss him, right?”

Steve’s expression clears. “Oh, yeah, definitely. It’s not the same without his constant bitching in the background. But he’s doing a very good thing, here.”

Eric nods vigorously. “Yeah, yeah.” He has about ten different things he could add to that, but he bites his tongue. Never let it be said that he’s incapable of learning from his mistakes.

“Okay, well,” Steve says, looking at him a little oddly. Maybe saying literally nothing was the wrong choice, too, when talking to someone who has intimate knowledge of how men from the Williams family tree usually are. “I’ll let you get to Danny.”

“Yeah, cool,” Eric says, lamely. “Thanks.”

Steve grins and claps him on the shoulder. “Bye, E-train. Tell Danny I said hello.”

“You were just there.”

Steve’s grin widens, and hey, maybe, uh, Eric can kind of get why his uncle would go for this guy, if he had to pick any guy at all. “Yeah. That’ll annoy him,” Steve says, ruining the moment.

Eric laughs, and watches Steve walk away. Steve turns back just before he steps out the door to throw Eric a hang loose gesture, so he shoots one back. Man, he loves Hawaii.

*

It takes him two elevator rides (he went up a floor too far the first time) and some asking around, but eventually Eric manages to knock on the right door. He knows this because the “what now?” he gets in response is definitely his uncle speaking.

He opens the door and finds a private hospital room. There’s a curtain obscuring one end of it, but uncle D is sitting in bed fiddling with his phone. He looks a little paler than Eric’s gotten used to since uncle D and Grace moved to Hawaii, but other than that he looks pretty much fine, apart from the fact that he’s in pajamas in a hospital bed. 

“Aha,” uncle D calls, dropping his phone onto the bedside table, which is littered with cards and flowers and food gifts to the point that Eric feels a little guilty for turning up empty-handed. He hadn’t even thought about something like that, but he makes a mental note to fix it next time he stops by. “If it isn’t Hawaii’s newest crime lab technician. What are you doing here?”

“Ey, that’s harsh,” Eric says, skipping the greeting, because that’s what uncle D did. “I was hoping you would know me from something else, too.”

“Now that you mention it, I think I may have seen your face every year at Christmas. That does ring a bell.”

Eric grins and then looks around. It’s not quite instinctive yet to consider Charlie, because the news that uncle D had a son that his ex-wife never told him about is still trippy to Eric. It’s like something out of his mom’s guilty pleasure soap operas. “Where’s the kid?”

Uncle D waves at the drawn curtain. “Behind there. He’s tuckered out from playing with his uncle Steve, so he nodded off a few minutes ago.”

Oh, shit, Eric thinks. “Don’t we need to be quiet?” he whisper-asks.

“Nah, he’s a heavy sleeper. As long as you don’t start yelling, we’re good.”

He’s a little relieved. He’s never been the best with sick people, but sick kids is so much worse. He doesn’t want one of Charlie’s first memories of him to be that he kept the little guy from his very necessary and deserved sleep.

There’s a chair by uncle D’s bedside, possibly abandoned there by Steve, so Eric drops into it and tries to get comfortable. “Well then, howzit, uncle D?”

Uncle D levels him with a look and shakes his head like he’s never encountered a greater disappointment. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to go all native on me. I was at the hospital when your mother had you, so I know where you’re from.”

“Okay, okay.” He overenunciates his words, just to annoy uncle D. “How are you, Detective Williams?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Really? Mom told me to ask you twice. She said maybe you’d give an honest answer the second time.”

Uncle D smiles a bit. It looks tired, but genuine. “Yeah, really. Charlie’s going to be doing better now, hopefully, and that’s all that matters.”

Eric nods. “S-” He stops, reconsidering if he should be calling Steve by his first name in front of Uncle D. He can be weird about names in a work context, and he seems to want Eric to view Steve as his boss first. “Uh, unc- Commander McGarrett?”

Uncle D’s eyebrows go up. “Is that a question? Not that I don’t approve of constantly questioning that guy and everything he does, but I promise you, I don’t have the answer either, even after five years of knowing him.”

Eric shakes his head. Uncle D didn’t object to the name, so maybe it’s safest to just run with that for the time being. “Nope, not a question. I ran into him down in the lobby and he told me to tell you hello.”

“ _Hello_?” Uncle D’s face twists into something that’s a scary mix between peeved and constipated. There’s also that ever-present underlying affection he’d probably deny to his dying day. Eric is tempted to get out his phone and snap a picture for Steve, but it’s more fun to let Steve take all the blame for this one without having to implicate himself. Uncle D’s hands go flying and he hasn’t looked this animated since Eric came in. “He told you to tell me hello? The guy was literally just here five minutes ago. Like we needed to add codependency on the list of things our therapist needs to deal with. The poor woman doesn’t get paid enough to have to tackle Steve’s warehouse full of issues.”

“I think it’s kinda sweet,” Eric says. “He also said he misses you.” Kind of, anyway. He leaves the part with the details out.

“He did?” Uncle D’s open surprise makes Eric want to facepalm and call his mother to commiserate. She always said uncle D was an idiot in relationships. Apparently she was right.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Codependent, I tell you,” uncle D mutters, but Eric isn’t fooled by the way he scratches his nose to hide his smile until he can force it down. He doesn’t look as tired now.

“Is he always like this when you’re in here?” 

“In here meaning in the hospital?” uncle D asks, giving a little huff. “How often do you think I’m here, Eric?”

Eric shrugs. “You always complain about how often you get shot at. I figured that translates to some hospital time, right?” Not that he’d know, because he’s never been shot. He’d really like to keep it that way, too.

“Yeah, well, most of the time I don’t get hit, thank God, and even the times a bullet does clip me, I usually don’t end up having to spend more than a couple hours here.” Uncle D frowns a little, as if at himself. “There was that time with the sarin gas, though. That was way back in my first year of knowing Steve, but yeah, he was pretty much the same then.” 

Eric does some mental math, based on what he knows about Five-0’s history. “How old is Charlie, again?”

“Three. He turns four in January.”

“Right.” Unless ex-aunt Rachel had a medically wondrous pregnancy, that means Charlie must have been conceived somewhere in 2011, presumably roughly in the same area of time as the sarin gas anecdote. It also means uncle D and Rachel were long since divorced by that point, but that’s one mess Eric wouldn’t want to be touching with a ten foot pole. “So you weren’t together yet with Commander McGarrett, back then?”

“No, I was,” uncle D says, and then seems to do a double take and startle. It’s hilarious, if baffling. It’s also a bit of a relief that it’s not as straightforward as all that, because Steve really doesn’t deserve to have uncle D cheating on him. “Hey, hold on, what? Why’d you say ‘together’ like that? We weren’t together _yet_?”

“Ohhh,” Eric says, because lots of things suddenly start making sense. “Am I not supposed to know? Is this, like, technically a secret relationship because the Governor doesn’t approve or some such? Which would be bad, by the way. Won’t be voting for that guy in the next elections, that’s for sure.”

“What relationship?” Uncle D sounds distressed, and Eric feels weirdly guilty about it. He didn’t mean to upset a guy who’s already in hospital to donate bone marrow to his very ill kid, but he’s still not entirely sure how he even did it, anyway.

“You and Commander McGarrett,” he says, because, duh, right?

“Me and-” Uncle D stops, stares hard at Eric, and then scrubs both hands over his own face like he’s exhausted, which he probably is, to be fair. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You think that, what, Steve and I have been hiding some kind of romantic relationship from you all this time, huh?”

“Well, no,” Eric says, because his mother taught him not to lie, “I didn’t think you were hiding anything until you started being weird about it just now.”

“Oh, I’m weird about it?” Uncle D makes a sound that’s like a laugh, but while being strangled to death. “I’m weird about it. Yeah, you’re damn right I might be a little weird about it if my nephew apparently thinks I’ve been getting it on with my best friend all this damn time.”

Eric gives himself a moment to let this sink in. He has to reevaluate so many interactions in his head now that it makes him a little dizzy. This is a major thing to get wrong, and he prides himself on being just smart enough to know that he’s definitely not always right, but this is next level.

Unconsciously, he leans a little towards his uncle and lowers his voice, like suddenly they’re talking about secrets. “Does Grace know?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re not a couple.”

“ _Yes_ , of course my daughter knows that,” uncle D says, in a way that sounds very much like ‘you fucking idiot’, even if he doesn’t say it out loud.

“Hey, there’s a reason I didn’t become a detective. I’m the guy who finds the puzzle pieces, not the guy who solves the puzzles.”

Uncle D throws his eyes heavenward. “Thank God for that. With the skills you just displayed, you’d probably end up arresting the dead guy for his own murder.”

“That would explain why the suspect wasn’t talking,” Eric quips.

Uncle D rolls his eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitch, too. Eric watches him and is struck by the thought that he doesn’t remember the last time that his uncle smiled at or about something that wasn’t in some way related to Steve, however distantly. He’s not even sure if this, currently, isn’t a Steve-smile in a way that’s just not super obvious to Eric. Suspects and getting them to talk is definitely something that could remind uncle D of his partner.

Of course the whole thought is a silly one to have, because it’s not like Eric catalogues all of his uncle’s smiles, so how the hell should he know if he’s even right or not? But it still seems significant somehow that he took enough notice to wonder about it in the first place. He knows to trust his gut during investigations, and this is not so very different, even if uncle D would probably deck him if he said that out loud.

He decides to try one last time, in honor of everyone who’s ever called him a stubborn mule. “So you and Steve are not anything? Not even just, like, friends with benefits?”

“No!” uncle D insists, perhaps too quickly. There’s vehement, angry gesticulation accompanying it. Eric wishes he knew more about psychology so he could dig deeper into these clues. “Don’t you think I would have _known_ if I’d been sleeping with Steve all this time? Doesn’t that seem like the kind of thing I would have noticed, maybe, at some point?”

Eric purses his lips and shrugs. “Hey, I don’t know how forgettable his -”

“If you value your life, Eric Phillip Russo,” uncle D hisses, “you won’t finish that sentence.”

“Man, you seem pretty defensive over something you claim to have never seen.”

Uncle D grabs his cellphone from the nightstand and waves it in a way that is somehow more intimidating than when he holds a gun. “I will _call your mother_. Don’t think I won’t do it.”

Eric raises his hands in the universal gesture for surrender. He really hopes his uncle still knows what that looks like, after working with Five-0 for so long. “Okay, okay, chill. I agree it seems likely you would’ve remembered fucking your partner.” He thinks on it for a second and then realizes he might have been insensitive again, without meaning to be. “Or getting fucked _by_ your partner. You know, whatever floats your boat.”

“Jesus, Eric,” uncle D says, but it sounds far more defeated than threatening. Wearing uncle D down would feel like more of a victory if they weren’t in a hospital with him as the patient.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, bro,” he says, instead of any accidentally sappy shit. That’s uncle D and Steve’s thing. “It was a fair question.”

“How is that a fair question, huh? Tell me that.”

One of the things his training as a lab tech taught him is to always look at things from all possible angles. “Well, how isn’t it?” he bounces back. “Besides, you’re really trying to tell me I’m the first person to ever ask about this? What, are the people on this island all blind and no one told me about it?”

Uncle D frowns, but it seems fake. He’s not frowning with enough real annoyance to be truly surprised. “Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’.” He allows his uncle a couple of seconds of peace. “Just that you’re kind of obvious, that’s all.”

“I thought we’d established that there is nothing to be obvious _about_ , you little punk.”

“Nah, we established you and Steve aren’t currently in a relationship and that you’re being really cagey about it. Those aren’t nearly the same thing.”

Uncle D waves the phone at him again, but this time it’s more part of his usual gestures, and less to do with the phone in particular. “I seriously, truly rue the day that I first thought getting you interested in law enforcement would be a good idea. I hope you know that.”

Eric grins. “Oh, you mean that day I rode along with you and Steve during a case, and the girl at the frat house took one look at the two of you and assumed you were this other girl’s gay dads? Is that the day you mean, uncle D?”

“I,” uncle D announces importantly, managing to look very sour while at the same time sinking down into his cushions, “am going to sleep. Goodbye, nephew that just got himself disowned.”

Eric watches, chuckling, as uncle D lowers himself to a comfortable sleeping position on his side, his back very pointedly turned towards Eric. It takes a couple of seconds before uncle D’s hand reaches out behind him blindly to put the phone he’s still holding back on his nightstand. He almost drops it to the floor, so Eric decides to be a good nephew for once and takes it from him.

He does, maybe, see if he can get into it for possible blackmail purposes, but he puts it on the nightstand like he’s supposed to when he finds that it’s password protected. On the whole, still a good nephew, he thinks.

“Hey, uncle D,” he says.

“Hmmm,” uncle D answers.

“I’m leaving now, alright? I’ll probably be back at least once, depending on how soon they let you out of here. Give Charlie a hug from me, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” uncle D says. It sounds like he’s speaking at least partly into his pillow. “Hugs for Charlie, got it. Now let me sleep, you menace.”

Eric gets up and quietly puts his visitor’s chair back against the wall, where it’s out of the way. “Bye, uncle D. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” 

Uncle D’s response consists of some grumbling and an annoyed hand emerging from the covers to flap above his head for a moment. Knowing uncle D, it’s a shooing gesture, not a wave. Eric laughs again and takes the hint.

*

When he gets down to the lobby, there’s a familiar face waiting for the elevator. “Wow,” Eric says.

Steve shifts a little in place, but doesn’t escape into the elevator when the people around him get moving, even though he looks like he might want to. “Oh, hi, Eric. That’s twice in one day, now.”

“Yeah, what an amazing coincidence. What are you doing back so soon?”

“Uh, well,” Steve says, and Eric realizes with glee that this is a Navy SEAL when he looks sheepish. He’s never gotten to experience that before. “I went into the office, but then the rest of the team went out for lunch pretty soon after and, you know, one of my favorite Indian places is really close by here, so I figured…” He shrugs, apparently figuring Eric will have figured what he figured.

“Alright, cool,” Eric says, and he’s definitely figured out _something_ , but he’s not so sure it’s whatever Steve was hoping to imply. Steve’s cover story is so weak he doesn’t even have take-out with him. “Uncle D was just falling asleep when I left, but he might have been faking it to get me to leave.”

“Sounds like Danny,” Steve says, a bit ridiculous in how fond he makes it sound.

“You should go figure that out, then.” Eric throws a finger in the direction of the exit. “I’m off to my own lunch. Have fun.”

“Thanks. Nice seeing you again, Eric.” As if on cue, a different elevator dings and the doors slide open. Steve hurries to get to it.

Eric is about to turn away and leave, when he realizes he just can’t leave it like this. His Williams instinct to meddle won’t let him sleep tonight if he leaves now, without saying anything. “Hey, Commander?” he calls.

Steve holds the elevator door before it can close more than a foot. He’s lucky that he has this ride for himself, or he’d be a bit of an asshole to the other people now. “Yeah?”

“Just tell him I told you everything.”

“Everything?” Steve questions. He frowns deeply, but Eric stands his ground. “Everything how?”

“Just everything. He’ll know what it means, trust me.” Eric briefly considers if that’s actually true, because he’s taking chances by keeping it this vague. “He should, anyway, if he’s not as much of a moron as he likes to accuse other people of being.”

Steve narrows his eyes. “Can I tell him you said that, too?”

“Oh, hey, that’s mean.”

The last thing Eric sees before he elevator doors slide shut, is Steve’s cocky grin. This must be why uncle D yells at him all the damn time. Eric really hopes he did a good thing here, and didn’t just set fire to an already explosive partnership.

At least they’d go down in a blaze of glory, and they’d be together. As long as that’s true, Eric thinks as he finally sets foot outside the hospital again, everything must be right with the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! 
> 
> H50 keeps getting me to write fics that feel super self-indulgent, but I love it, gosh. Please let me know what you thought of this fic if you have the time! I always enjoy your comments immensely. <3
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 (and mostly McDanno) sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


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